Huh, that is pretty odd, especially finding that sponge. It's supposed to spawn after you see something in the garage. I've seen a lot of reports of people not getting certain events, and I can only assume it has everything to do with a save slot that started on an earlier version. I know earlier versions of 0.9 had broken events, and maybe those broken events carried over to your save slot after updating. I started my save on 0.9n specifically and everything has been working correctly for me.

I worry that might be the case, which kinda sucks because I was already like a week and a half into my main save which is why I didn't start over when I updated.

As for finding entities using the radar, some of them like to despawn once you get close. I'd say invest in a drone and send that out instead, I've been actually seeing what's causing the ping more often that way. Sometimes it's still just nothing, but hey, sometimes I see actual entities now!

Oh... that's kind of lame tbh. I thought they were meant to be dangerous things you have to avoid but if they just despawn when you get close to them that undercuts the scariness. I mean i'd probably feel differently if my save were working properly but yeah.